Was Chama Gaucha hit by ransomware?

Chama Gaucha was listed by the Cicada3301 ransomware operation (United States), and stolen data was published on the group's leak site. Darkfield tracks this disclosure with the original leak post, screenshot and group context.

Who is the Cicada3301 ransomware group?

Cicada3301 is a ransomware operator tracked by Darkfield. See the full operator dossier for its known victims, sectors targeted, IOCs and leak-site infrastructure.

What data was leaked in the Chama Gaucha breach?

Cicada3301 published data attributed to Chama Gaucha. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Chama Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse

listed as Chama Gaucha · Claimed by Cicada3301 · listed 2 years ago

23m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 23, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Cicada3301
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Hospitality and Tourism
Listed on leak site: Aug 23, 2024

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Chama Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse is an authentic churrasco restaurant featuring USDA Prime meats carved tableside by skilled gauchos, a gourmet salad bar, and Brazilian hospitality. Founded in 2008, it operates five locations across San Antonio (two locations), Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Chicago.

Industry: Full-service Restaurant & Steakhouse (Brazilian Churrascaria)
Address: Multiple locations: 18318 Sonterra Place, San Antonio, TX 78258; 217 E Houston St, Suite 100, San Antonio, TX 78205; 5865 Westheimer Rd., Houston, TX 77057; 4025 William D Tate Ave, Grapevine, TX 76051; 3008 Finley Rd., Downers Grove, IL 60515
Founded: 2008

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Threat of data release with no proof yet published; however, a restaurant chain handling customer PII (reservations, contact details, payment) and employee data at scale represents moderate exposure risk if exfiltrated. Encryption status unknown.

Cicada3301 claims to have exfiltrated data from Chama Gaucha and threatens to release it if the company does not contact them. No specific data categories or proof files have been published in the leak post.

medium

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Customer records
Reservation data
Payment information
Employee records

What the group claims

Chama Gaucha quickly gained recognition for its commitment to culinary excellence and impeccable service. The restaurant’s name, “Chama Gaucha,” translates to “Gaucho’s Flame,” representing the fiery passion and expertise that goes into every dish. From the moment guests step through the doors, they are transported to a world of warmth, hospitality, and the unmistakable aroma of mouthwatering grilled meats. Data will be released soon if the company doesn't contact us!

Sources

Victim sitechamagaucha.com
Leak posthttp://cicadabv7vicyvgz5khl7v2x5yygcgow7ryy6yppwmxii4eoobdaztqd.onion/8iii6js6gsrqghkguvabvywha0upwnr2

Source

Indexed 2 years ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.

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Disclosure context

About Cicada3301

Cicada3301 is a recently emerged ransomware group that began operations in June 2024, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion activities targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group's origin and affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, with limited information available regarding their operational structure or potential connections to other cybercriminal organizations. Based on observed targeting patterns, Cicada3301 has demonstrated a preference for attacking business services, technology, manufacturing, and financial sector organizations, with their operations concentrated primarily in English-speaking countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, as well as extending to Spain and Singapore. The group has successfully compromised approximately 75 known victims since their emergence, though specific details regarding their attack methodologies, initial access vectors, encryption techniques, and extortion tactics have not been extensively documented in publicly available threat intelligence reports from major cybersecurity firms or government agencies. Given the limited public documentation available from CISA, FBI, Mandiant, or other reputable security researchers, the group's current operational status, technical capabilities, and specific attack infrastructure remain largely uncharacterized in open-source intelligence reporting. As of the most recent observations, Cicada3301 appears to remain active in conducting ransomware operations, though comprehensive analysis of their tactics, techniques, and procedures awaits more detailed public reporting from established threat intelligence sources. The group has been linked to 75 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 20, 2024; most recent post September 4, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 23, 2024Chama Gaucha listed by Cicada3301on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Cicada3301

Cicada3301 has been linked to 75 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Cicada3301 dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Hospitality and Tourism sector, which has 452 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Chama Gaucha is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Cicada3301 means Chama Gaucha appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.

Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
Report the incident to your national CERT, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Cicada3301's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.